How to Choose Your Wedding Day Perfume

It’s said that our sense of smell is most closely tied to our memories. Certain scents have the power to bring us right back to special times in our lives; a certain recipe may remind you of cooking at your grandmother’s house, or fresh cut grass may bring you back to your time playing high school sports.

For this reason, many brides choose to buy a new bottle of perfume specifically for their wedding. The unique scent will become connected to their ceremony, and whenever they wear it later in life they’ll be reminded of that special day. This is a fun way to “bottle up” the magic of your wedding day, but how do you know which scent to choose? Here are a few tips to help you find the perfect wedding perfume.

Consider Your Wedding Venue

While the perfume you wear will influence the scents you experience on the big day, it certainly won’t be the only thing you smell. There will be plenty of other scents hitting our olfactory organs at any given time, from your sweetheart’s cologne to the delicious catering at the reception. Obviously, you can’t block out these scents, but you can choose a fragrance that complements them.

Let’s say you’re having an outdoor wedding at the beach. You might want to choose a perfume with a beach-y profile—something with tropical notes like coconut, jasmine, or mango. Or, if your wedding is in an elegant garden, you might want to wear something floral. Considering the scents surrounding your venue will help you find something that really connects to this particular time and place.

Read the Ingredients

Most couples spend their wedding day on the move. Between getting ready, getting married, visiting with guests, and tearing up the dance floor, there’s hardly a moment to stand still! Because of this, you’ll want to wear a long-lasting perfume that will stick throughout the evening. How do you know which perfumes will last? Easy: all you have to do is read the ingredients.

Your wedding perfume should contain more oil than it does water. Fragrances with high oil content tend to last longer, and they also become activated as you move, ensuring that your perfume will last well into the last dance. If scouring ingredient lists isn’t for you, you can always bet on certain types of perfumes; for example, “eu de parfum” has more oil than an “eau de toilette.”

Try the Scent Out Before You Buy

Brides, do yourselves a favor: don’t wait until your wedding day to wear your “wedding day perfume.” Most fragrances smell different on our skin than they do on those little cards the ladies give out at the mall, and it’s important that you’ve tested out a fragrance before you commit to it. If you find a scent you like, spray it on your wrist and go about your day. Then, if you still enjoy it after a few hours of wear, you might have found the perfect scent.

Also, don’t be afraid to try several different fragrances—and definitely don’t be afraid to stray from your signature scent. In fact, wearing a drastically different scent on your wedding day can be a lot of fun! It will help solidify this fragrance as your special “wedding day scent,” different from any of the other perfumes in your collection.

Wear the Perfume Properly

So, you’ve found a scent you enjoy. You’ve checked the label to make sure it’s long-lasting. You’ve given yourself a test spritz to wear for the rest of the day. What else can you do to make sure the fragrance sticks around? The key is how you wear it. If you want your perfume to perform its very best, you have to make sure you put it in the right place.

The best spots to wear any perfume are your pressure points (your wrists, behind your ears, on your ankles, and in the crook of your arms). These areas generate the most heat on your body, which will help increase your perfume’s strength and make it give off more scent. Just make sure you don’t overdo it; you want your perfume to last all evening, but you don’t want everyone to drown in it!

As you look for your wedding day perfume, make sure you look for a fragrance that you really, really love. Planning a wedding involves dealing with a lot of people and a lot of opinions, but this one thing is all about you and the special memory that you are creating. This fragrance will connect you with this beautiful day, so you can relive the memory for years to come. Whatever you choose, make sure it’s a scent that makes you feel joy, and don’t be afraid to keep searching until you find the right one!